Burning Feathers
by of-convoluted-disillusion
Summary: And when the torn, frayed edges of Them finally twist back to full circle again, Cas almost wishes they wouldn't. Sometimes it's easier to have the tension between them, the unspoken want, than it is to have this broken mess laid bare. Dean/Cas one-shot, ANGST, not a happy fic at all.


**A/N: I don't actually know why I wrote this. I've _never _even considered writing tragedy before. But idk, I guess once I wrote a paragraph or two I just went with it and this is what happened...  
Thanks to the lovely NightNerd for the beta work!**

**Title: **Burning Feathers

(burning- corroding; all-consuming; painful) (feathers- soft, sensitive plumage; often of wings)

**Author: **Kaiya

**Characters: **Castiel; Dean Winchester; Sam Winchester

**Pairings: **Dean Winchester/Castiel; mentions of (background) Dean Winchester/Lisa Braedon

**Warnings: **angst, tragedy, language

**Summary:** _And when the torn, frayed edges of Them finally twist back to full circle again, Cas almost wishes they wouldn't. Sometimes it's easier to have the tension between them, the unspoken want, than it is to have this broken mess laid bare. Dean/Cas one-shot, ANGST, not a happy fic at all.  
_

**Word Count: **2,784

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For Castiel, falling in love with Dean Winchester is comparable to watching himself drown in a sea of fire. In a cruel, ironic way it's almost poetic- Castiel, already well known in heaven for his unconventionally achieved successes, dragging a broken hunter from the depths of the burning pit, only to stumble right into another one himself, and he's not sure when it happened but he's finding his loyalties torn between a man he's sworn to watch over and a family he's sworn to serve for eternity.

(None of the other angels are that surprised when he rebels.)

Honestly, Cas shouldn't have been as surprised as he is. Dean has always seemed different to him- more than just one of the humans that Castiel himself loves so much. Human souls are the most beautiful things Cas has ever laid eyes on, and the fire in Dean's soul burns more brightly than the sun**;** Cas can see it when he stares into those tired eyes. There's something about knowing that that makes fire spark in his veins. Even just being around him, Cas feels this unexplainable wild happiness; all it takes is one look, one touch, to ignite the exhilaration. Knowing him, knowing he needs Castiel, the angel somehow feels more important**,** as though there's maybe an actual meaning to his existence after all. Before him, Cas was a seasoned, battle-hardened warrior; not as cold as most of his brothers and sisters, but still more or less unfeeling. With him, in the fleeting moments of solitude where they rebuild each other from whiskey and tears until they can both smile again for another week, he feels an unstable sense of peace, like this thing between them is just a momentary truce. It scares him to think that one day there might be an _After Dean_. After Dean he knows he'll just be a lost, lonely child, no purpose, no direction without love or loyalty guiding him. God knows what might happen to him then.

(Whatever Dean says, Cas understands irony perfectly. God probably knows exactly what will happen to Cas in the event of _After Dean_. Knows and doesn't really give two flying fucks at all, piss-poor father that he is.)

It's really, really unbelievably _easy_ for happiness to slip through your fingers. Cas learns the hard way when he watches Dean pulling up at Lisa's house and knocking on her front door, and he thinks maybe this is the worst he's ever felt. He learns a whole new worst later when he finally has Dean back and has to live with knowing he's eventually going to have to let him go. _Losing _someone is one thing. _Holding on _when you know it's too late is something else entirely. But he has no choice. Sometimes doing the right thing means sacrificing your only silver lining for the sake of the greater good.

(Sometimes you think you're doing the right thing all the way up to the split second where everything goes completely wrong.)

When Dean forgives him (like he _always _does) for breaking Sam's wall and letting out the Leviathans, Cas feels real, actual happiness for the first time in a long time- soothing, _healing_- even though the light doesn't completely make it back to Dean's eyes. It's fleeting, but it's strong enough to snap him out of his insanity. They kill Dick Roman together, the three of them- _Team Free Will_- and Kevin Tran goes back to school and his old life, a survivor of the Winchesters' touch.

(They try not to think about the fact that he's one of a rare, lucky few.)

On Dean's 34th birthday, the three of them go out to drink, because Sam and Dean just met their grandfather, found out he didn't really abandon their father after all, and watched him die all in the same two days- _loyal, brave, self-sacrificing like his grandsons_. They take the key he gave them, and the bunker they find is exactly what they've both always needed- _home_. After a few weeks of Dean begging, Cas gives in and agrees to live with them. The night he moves in- Dean's birthday- Dean's showing him around properly, and he's drunk, and Cas is feeling kind of apprehensive about the strange emptiness in his friend's eyes because it means that the crap is loaded pretty heavily. He's about to ask what's wrong when Dean pushes him against a wall and kisses him roughly. Cas isn't entirely sure that Dean's sober, and he _is _entirely sure that Dean's pretty damn far from alright, but he's missed this and he could never really say no to his charge anyway- that's what got him into this mess that's now his life in the first place.

(In retrospect, he should have said no, because it kind of feels like they're doing this as a distraction; like there's something they have to forget and this is the only thing that can make it happen.)

From there on in, they spin faster and faster, reaching for each other as they keep losing everything over and over; not miserable but never quite satisfied by what they have. Cas isn't stupid. He knows the game they're playing and all its dangers, knows that it would be better to stay back and wait. Wait, and cling to the hope that sooner or later things might change, and when they do, Cas is glad he didn't wait, because the weeks turn to months and the months stretch out into three long years where his human life slowly wears at his grace and then things change in the worst possible way, and it's permanent.

(_Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all._ Isn't that what people say? Cas isn't so sure.)

Sam dies on a Tuesday. In another life that might have meant something to Dean, but Cas can tell the blow is too hard- _too heavy, too much, indescribable, irreplaceable, irreparable_- for him to pick up the irony. _Failure_. _One job, one job that was more important than anything or anyone. Watch out for your little brother. Watch out for Sammy._ Cas didn't think the self-loathing in Dean's eyes could increase, but now he can't even bring himself to notice the way it does. All he feels is numb. _Empty_. He hates it- hates that he failed, that they both failed at the one thing they promised each other they'd always do- _look out for your family_. He knows he should feel sad, or angry, but all he can bring himself to feel is 'I hate myself for losing Sam, _for surviving when Sam didn't'_. And numb, he's _so fucking numb_ that it feels like he can't breathe. _Don't look at Dean_. He can't let himself look at Dean now or he'll lose it completely and one of them has to keep it together for at least a little while. _Long enough to bury Sam_. Sam is dead. Sam died on a Tuesday and _Cas couldn't save him_. There's nothing that's ever felt quite like that before.

It was a demon hunt. Routine, but their routine has always been for someone they love to get hurt, and there's nobody left they love but the three of them. _The two of them, now_. Two of them, the last ones standing and _isn't that the most bittersweet irony in the world_? That Dean and Cas, the not quite steady, fractured fairytale lovers, are the ones left in the end, to crumble and turn to dust while the rest of the world keeps turning.

They give Sam a hunter's funeral, but then Dean collects his ashes and he sobers up for long enough to go down to the store and buy a jar. He keeps a small amount of the ash around his neck and buries the rest. He even finds a large, flat stone and carves _Sammy_ into it, forcing it into the ground, and Cas uses his grace to prevent the stone from ever weathering. They don't lay down roses- _roses are lame_, Sam used to say. They're not sure where that came from but for whatever reason it had been important to him, and that's a good enough reason anyway. Dean sits down, propped against the headstone, and he stays there for several days until Cas makes him move. Cas who's still numb, _no pain_, who has to keep it together because he knows Dean will never be okay again, _never_, and one of them has to keep going _for Sam_.

(The pain comes later, and it makes Cas long for the numb and the empty. _And for Sam_.)

The first month is the hardest until the next one comes around and it's worse. Dean stops talking beyond necessity. They don't hold each other anymore; they barely touch save for the _systematic pleasure_ that neither of them really feel. Most days it feels more like Dean's 34th birthday over again- the only difference being that then, Sam was alive and _there_ to put the light back in Dean's eyes.

(After three months Cas is sure he's never going to see that light again.)

They drift apart, slowly but surely, and it kind of feels like it would hurt if Cas wasn't beyond feeling pain anymore. It's not as though he really misses the sex- he can't even really remember what it was like back when there was more than just meaningless touch. But he does miss the way Dean would occasionally smile- the way _Sam could always make Dean smile_. It just makes him hate himself even more for not being as good as Sam was, for not having the unshakeable faith that Dean needs to keep him going. After five months, nothing is better and everything still hurts. They've stopped _expecting_ to see Sam everywhere, but they haven't stopped _hoping _for it and that's so much worse. Cas is getting desperate; he _needs _to do something.

(He thinks maybe offering his services in heaven's current battle is the worst thing he could possibly have done, but he does it anyway because it's the _only thing _that isn't going to make him think of Sam.)

The war, some stupid pissing match with the powerful minion of some other planet's religion that's just blown wildly out of control, keeps him busy. He tries to stay at the bunker as much as he can, for Dean, but the truth is that the idea is a classic example of _easier said than done_. He stays for a few days and then leaves for a few weeks, and even when he's there with Dean they don't touch, or talk, or even look at each other. And it's finally gotten to the stage where Cas is using the war as less of a distraction and more of an excuse to stay away for up to several months at a time.

When Dean figures it out he doesn't even care enough to be hurt.

"You know what?" he smirks coldly, banging his bottle down on the table. "It's fine. Seriously. This must be _so hard for you_. Y'know, losing someone like that."

"_Dean_," Cas tries to explain himself. In the past letting off steam like this has always made them feel a little less like crap. This time it just _hurts._

"Fuck off." Dean snorts without humour. "Or better yet, why don't you go on back to your precious war. It's not like you're any use now. Can't even save your family, can you Angel?" He storms out of the room.

_That _hurts. There's nothing about that that doesn't hit the mark exactly like Dean intended it to. But it isn't like Cas doesn't know Dean blames him for not being able to save Sam. It's not like he ever expects to be forgiven. Who knows, maybe he doesn't even _want _to be forgiven. And standing alone in the room, Cas can feel something settling over him. _Confusion. Abandonment. Despondency._

This is what he dreaded, this is the _After Dean _he always knew he'd come to one day. And it's about six billion times worse than he could ever have feared.

(The next time Cas leaves, he doesn't come back for seven years.)

Mostly he only comes back because watching his comrades (not brothers, not anymore) die in battle has filled him with the irrepressible _need _to visit Sam's grave. He's talked himself into believing that he won't feel anything. Surely after all these years, all these other tragedies and wars he's fought in the years since he's seen either of the brothers, the pain must have numbed. Most days the fighting helps him forget. Needless to say that after all these years, he still hasn't learned.

(What really gets him is the way Dean doesn't show any particular interest in the fact that he's back. He supposes Dean hasn't shown much interest in anything for years.)

They do visit Sam, and when he's there, standing at the headstone, knowing Sam is dust somewhere six feet below this ground, Cas can't stop the tears from coming. He sinks down onto the grass and weeds that have grown over the grave, and he curls up against the rock, curls in on himself and just sobs for his dead brother.

(Dean doesn't cry. He just rests a hand on the headstone and mumbles, 'heya, Sammy,' in a broken voice that's full of more emotion than he's shown collectively in the past ten years. Then he pours a splash of their favourite beer over the grave and walks away.)

They try to get better, to _fix things, _because they both know Sam would never want them to waste away like this. It's not easy, but they try anyway. They talk about maybe hunting again. They need to do _something_, and that's one thing they both know they can do. So Cas goes into town and gets a newspaper, and finds them a gig not too far away. Just a small haunting, no angels or demons or apocalyptic phenomena, and they pack up the Impala and go. For just a moment, it almost feels like the old days, the glory days- except Sam isn't there, and that weighs on them even more than they thought it would.

That night they drown themselves in old whiskey and achingly familiar sex that feels more like self-mutilation than anything else. Cas leaves again in the morning, but this time he's only gone for a few hours, and he comes back with enough liquor to have them both shitfaced for a month.

(The ache of Sam's absencelasts longer than the hangover.)

And when the torn, frayed edges of _Them _finally twist back to full circle again, Cas almost wishes they wouldn't. Sometimes it's easier to have the tension between them, the unspoken _want_, than it is to have this broken mess laid bare. It's been years since he could even _remember _not needing Dean irrepressibly, but he thinks he's starting to finally understand why, despite the horrible fighting and the way words like 'monster' and 'don't believe in you' and 'don't trust you' were once more commonplace than banter and laughter, Sam and Dean never really broke completely.

_They call it co-dependency for a reason_.

(Thinking of Sam still makes Cas want to kill himself, but he won't. If it hurts him it's got to be a million times worse for Dean. _They call it co-dependency for a reason_.)

This time, there isn't enough rope left for the knot to untie itself. These days it feels more like a noose, and if they try to untie it they'll probably break their necks in the process. So they don't try. They stay together in the loudest silence they've ever known, even in the seven years they spent apart; they drink, they fuck, and most days they don't leave the bunker. Their relationship (not that they can even call it that anymore, it's been so twisted and shattered over time that it's beyond repair or recognition) is more out of habit than out of actual love. Cas doesn't think they're even capable of love anymore. Love requires life, and Dean has been dead since the second Sam stopped breathing. Days are spent in the loungeroom and they never really make it to bed at night. Talking beyond necessity would be completely out of the question. But still they hold onto each other- because they have to, because they know Sam wanted them to and if they can't live their lives without him the way he wanted them to they should at least give him this.

(And because it's all either of them have left.)

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**So what do you think? Flames will be ignored save for dancing in them like hellfire and then extinguishing them to avoid burning the city down!**

**~ Kaiya ~**


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